Category: Polling (Surveys)

Surveys are a great tool for asking questions and getting immediate feedback or results. They can be used for polling, voting or association wide questionnaires. They can also be used to add a little fun to you website. Surveys, unlike online forms, are always "Live" or available to the public and are displayed as a menu page on the Association or Home page. Online forms should be used if you are creating a questionnaire that you would like to be closed to the public or on a particular menu tab.

Once you have selected "Surveys" from the menu choices on the Admin page, the "Poll Center" form will be displayed. From this page you can clone, edit, delete or test an existing survey, as well as add a new survey. Optionally, you can view, clear or download the results of an existing survey.

Once you have chosen to add a new survey or edit an existing one, the resulting page is the "Poll Information" form. On this page, you will enter some basic information about you survey.

Name

This is the name of your survey. This will appear on the Survey List page (if you have multiple active surveys) as well as at the top of the survey itself.

Description

This should be a brief description of the survey. The description can be used to give instructions or state the purpose of the survey.

Open Date

This is the date that you would like the survey to become visible to the public and the starting date for results to be counted. If no date is entered, the survey will not appear on the Survey List page. Note: If the date is left blank, the Admin will still see the survey on the "Poll Center" list for editing, but it will not visible to the public.

Close Date

This is the end date for the survey. No results will be tabulated after this date.

At the bottom of the form, there are two check boxes. The first, if checked will limit one vote per internet connection. If unchecked, participants can vote numerous time. The second box, when checked, will allow participants to view results immediately after answering the survey. When unchecked, results will be available only from the Admin page.

After the Poll Information form has completed, click the "Continue" button at the bottom of the form. The resulting page, titled "Question List", will allow you to add a new question (by clicking on the icon), delete an existing question (by clicking on the X) or edit an existing question (by clicking on the name of the question). You can also preview the survey by clicking on "Preview the poll..." selection.

Once you have chosen to add a new question or edit an existing one, the resulting form, titled "Define Question", is where you will enter the question and its answer choices.

Name

This field is for design reference only. The entry here will only be seen by the Admin when editing or adding to the survey. The default for this field is "Q#", with # being the number of the question.

Required

When this selection is checked, the participant must answer the question to complete the survey. If unchecked, the participant may skip the question.

Question

This is the question that you are defining on this form.

Answers

These are the choices that participants will be able to choose from. One answer is allowed per line and should be separated by pressing enter after each choice to go to the next answer choice. You may have as many answer choices as you would like.

After entering the answer choices, you may optionally use the check boxes that follow:

Random
When checked, the answer choices will be in random order each time a participant answers a survey. This selection can be used along with any of the following boxes.

Multi-Select
When checked, multiple answers can be selected to answer questions. If unchecked, only one answer may be given for the question. This selection cannot be checked along with the "Ranking" box

Ranking
This selection will allow participants to rank the answer choices in the order of their preference. This selection cannot be checked along with the "Multi-select" box

User Entry
This entry will allow participants to enter a free form text answer. This can be used along with any of the previous choices.

Numeric Scale

This will allow users to enter their answer on a numeric scale. For example, you can ask a question allow the user to answer on a scale of 1 to 5 (or any parameters you set), 1 being the worst (lowest) and 5 being the best (highest). This can be helpful if you're using the survey to rate performance.